


zum zweitenmal entkommst du mir

by pinuspinea



Series: Swan Lake remixes [16]
Category: Swan Lake & Related Fandoms, Лебединое озеро - Чайковский | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Genre: Dark Magic, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Desperation, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Murder-Suicide, Necromancy, Snow White Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28169847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinuspinea/pseuds/pinuspinea
Summary: The arrow pierces her heart, and the swan queen crumbles onto the shores of her lake, dead.Von Rothbart does not accept the loss of her.
Relationships: Odette/Von Rothbart (Lebedínoye Ózero | Swan Lake)
Series: Swan Lake remixes [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824241
Kudos: 9





	zum zweitenmal entkommst du mir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pure_Anon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pure_Anon/gifts).



> Well this turned super dark. Heed my warnings: this is all hurt and absolutely zero comfort. Bring a blanket and a water bottle, because hydration is important after crying.

In his mind's eye, he sees the arrow being notched and launched, and with horror, he sees it fly across the sky until it pierces Odette's heart.

The scream that escapes his mouth is more animal than human, and he runs to her like he always does. The broken swan has turned into the crumbled form of a girl, far too young and far too fragile, and he screams as he cradles her against his chest, screams in pain worse than anything he has ever felt before in his long life.

The swan maidens listen to his wordless begging and pleas, and they turn towards the hunting party with malice that is worse than anything he has felt from them, but he does not see them. He looks at the pale face of Odette, those delicate lips of hers, and his hand shivers as he caresses her face and holds her in his embrace as the blood pours out of her body and seeps into his clothes.

With as much care as he can, he picks the dead girl into his embrace and onto his arms, and the hunting party screams in terror as the swan maidens descend upon them.

His legs shake like mad. He feels like the world is spinning the wrong way around, as if gravity had shifted in some horrible way, and the girl in his arms remains motionless even though he cries as he looks at her.

He murmurs soft words of comfort and love as he carries her into his house, and he lays her down on his bed. She looks so pale and so hurt, and his hands shake as they straighten out the bones that are jutting through her skin, as they fix the angles of her limbs until she is like he is used to seeing her.

The arrow is the last thing he takes hold of, and with utmost care, he cuts the wood and pushes the rest through her chest until it comes out from her back. He shivers in self-hatred and murmurs apologies as he lays her down again.

The blood is starting to clot in his fingers, and slowly, he retrieves water.

Her skin is cool to the touch by the time he finishes washing her, and then he kisses her broken bones together again and fades the purpling of her skin. He cleans her skin and her hair, and with his magic, he takes off all her jewels and the old, torn, worn dress he is so used to seeing her in.

The new dress is more like a nightshirt than a proper dress, and she looks so beautiful. He takes hold of her hand and slowly shifts the neckline of the dress until it covers the hole in her heart, and then he kisses her knuckles and sits with her until his tears run dry.

* * *

He gathers flowers for her. This late in autumn, he does not have as great an amount of choices as he would have deep in the summer, but there are still dozens of flowers that he sets to rest by her head, that he surrounds her in. She lays amongst them all as if she were asleep, and he preserves her and the flowers in his memory.

It's so difficult to leave her side for even a moment, but sometimes, he has to replace the flowers or pick another one of his tomes of forbidden dark magic. He is always quick to return to her. He does not want her to be alone.

The texts are heavy, and his eyes are so blurry nowadays, but he reads and reads and reads because he knows that is the only way he will ever get her back, so read he must. He learns and studies and wonders, and the flowers that surround her in a soft cloud of fragrance wilt until he gets up and replaces them with new ones.

He comes back to her, and she has not moved an inch. He sets the flowers all around her, and she is as beautiful as a painting.

He looks at her and smiles and his eyes burn as he caresses her face, a face that has not been broken even in death, and he kisses those too cool lips of hers.

He always waits anxiously, always waits for her to open her eyes and look at him with those strange eyes of hers. He tentatively caresses her skin and waits, but her eyes do not open. Her lips remain cool and unmoving.

He goes back to his books and looks at her with such sorrow and longing, and he changes the flowers around her until the season ends and darkness finally arrives.

* * *

In the winter, he takes all those dried flowers that he has preserved in the other rooms of his house, and he pulls the petals from the stems and lays them all around her until the floor crunches with his steps, until there is not a single spot in the room that does not smell faintly of autumn flowers and memories of a happier time.

She is illuminated by one hundred candles burning. He surrounds her in light when the sun fades. She loved light, loved the sun. She should have all the light even now.

Her pure white dress makes her look so lovely and young. He cannot resist her like this, and he kisses her again. How cold her lips are! How he wishes they would return his kiss, how they would curl and open to let out a voiceless sigh of contentment! But she remains still and beautiful in the dead of winter, in the dead of night, and he caresses her face.

"You will soon be with me again, my love," he murmurs and promises to her. "You will soon be here with me again."

* * *

Spring comes and he barely notices it. He collects the crumbled-up petals from the room and surrounds her with new life, and she remains in his bed, always such a welcome sight to his tired eyes. He smiles at her and speaks to her in a soft voice, and he imagines what she might say or do.

He reads his books, and slowly, he starts to heal her broken body. He fixes what he did not know to fix before. The paleness of her skin returns once those ugly blotches are gone with his loving magic, and the blue tint fades just enough that in the right light she looks like she is simply asleep.

But she does not open her eyes or breathe or have a heart that beats a steady rhythm in her chest, and he closes his eyes, so very tired.

Her hand is in his hands, and he kisses her knuckles.

"Not long now, after all, not long at all," he tells her. "Just until the moon is right."

She does not answer him, but he has already gotten used to it through these difficult months.

* * *

It is agony to wait for the right time, to wait for the time when the moon is finally in the shadow of the world and gone from the sky completely, but he is a patient man.

He waits by her side, changes the flowers for her, and he kisses her hand and her brow, and he talks to her in a quiet voice, and she is as beautiful as he has always seen her as. He repairs her one fracture at a time, and finally she is complete in front of him. Only the gaping wound in her chest remains, but that he does not heal. Instead, he runs his fingers down the length of the wound, and he imagines how she would shiver from this touch, and he closes his eyes and counts the seconds until it is the time to act.

* * *

The night is dark, so very, very dark without the moon. The shadow of the world is covering everything. Even the stars seem to be holding their breath.

He kisses her brow, and he hesitates by her side. He does not want to be away from her, not for a single moment, but he knows what must be done so that she will breathe again, so that he will have her back for himself all over again. He needs her back in his arms, he needs to hear her voice, he needs to see those lips curling in a half-smile. He needs her more than he has ever needed anything.

The forest is quiet, and anticipation thrums in his veins as he soars through the sky, above the canopy of the dark trees, and then, his eyes rest where they know his prize to wait.

The palace is still. His cloak of magic and shadows makes everyone else fall asleep, and not a single soul can open their eyes while he passes them by. The rooms are heavy with darkness that stirs with each of his steps. There is no sound, just that heavy presence of magic and might and desperation that borderlines on insanity.

The prince is sleeping in his bed all alone, so small, young, and innocent. Von Rothbart bends his neck as he studies the child. He is perfect for what the spell requires. Already he feels the dark powers around him swirling eagerly, waiting for that sacrifice he will give them to gain Odette back, and the prince sniffles in his dreams.

There is no magic to cloak von Rothbart's presence from the prince, and he wakes with a gasp.

Von Rothbart easily leans over the bed and picks up the child who fusses and then starts to fight, and the prince cries and screams, but there is no one to hear him.

It is much too easy to take the child. His fearful eyes are locked onto von Rothbart and he begs and pleads in childish words, and he slurs and hiccups and prays like he has been taught to, but the prince must pay for his father's sins.

_A life for a life, a heart for a heart_ , von Rothbart thinks as the frightened child eventually stills and weeps quietly as he realises there is no one to help him.

* * *

The prince starts crying all anew as he sees Odette in that sea of flowers. For a year, von Rothbart has had to guard over her form, for a year he has been studying and replacing flowers and healing her, and now the eclipse is almost complete. Von Rothbart lays the child next to her on the bed, and then he snaps his fingers.

The dark, forbidden powers all around him eagerly latch onto the prince and hold him still. Von Rothbart looks into those tearful eyes, and then he looks at Odette.

"I'm here, darling," he murmurs as he kisses her brow. "And I shall never leave you again."

_And she shall never flee him again_ , he thinks as he takes the dagger made of pure silver, and he looks at the prince.

The clothes rip so easily as he reveals the tiny, heaving chest. The prince's eyes are full of panic.

Von Rothbart positions the dagger carefully.

"Don't worry, Siegfried," he tells the prince. "Your life won't be wasted."

He slides the tiny chest open, and blood covers his hands as he breaks open the ribs. The prince screams and tries to trash, but all around them, the dark powers feed on the innocent victim's life-force and feast on the blood that spreads into air all around them.

Carefully, von Rothbart detaches the heart from the chest that shall never rise once more, and he looks at the tiny heart that beats in his hands like a tiny bird fluttering in its cage, and he thinks how appropriate it will be for his Odette.

He spreads her wound wide open and slips the heart inside, and then, he murmurs spells as the dark powers join that heart with Odette's own. Their power is almost intoxicating, but he does not falter in his words, murmuring endless spells that tie her life with his.

He can feel that heart fluttering as if it was resting next to his own, and he looks at Odette and gently caresses her cheek with a thumb that is covered in blood. Red is returning to lips that have been blue for far too long.

He leans over her, and he kisses breath back into her lungs, leaving him with only half a breath in his own lungs. He feels a smile curl on his lips as tears of joy fall over her face and wash away the bloodstains.

It takes a few spells to heal the wound in her chest, and then he simply sits next to her for a long moment and caresses her hands, feels heat returning to them, and he smiles and feasts on her life with his eyes.

Eventually, he must rise. The dead body of the prince will not be allowed to ruin her return, and so he carries it outside. The swan maidens are already waiting for him.

They have felt the presence of those same powers he pulled them from, and they look at the prince who has been sacrificed to ensure the return of their queen.

"Return him to his home and his bed," von Rothbart orders them. They look at the prince curiously. He is not a slight child, but still they carry him as if he weighs nothing.

He looks at them leave, the blood that seeps into their very being, and he looks at his own clothes that have been licked clean by the dark magic.

In his room, there is not a single drop of blood. He returns to crumbled and wilted flowers and Odette who sleeps in his bed, and he is so struck by the sight that his strength leaves him, and he is left leaning on the wall for a long time.

Eventually, he goes outside and picks new flowers for her, and then he returns and arranges the room so that it is ready for her return, and he sits by her side and kisses her slowly warming hands and sighs as he smells the skin of her wrists.

He caresses his own cheek with her hands and shivers, and then he settles in to wait.

* * *

The passing days are near torture. He sits by her and holds her hand, but it does not warm to be like it was before, instead remaining slightly cool to the touch, but nowhere near as cold as her skin before.

He sits with her, and gently, he caresses her hands and waits. Eventually, there comes a morning when she takes in a fluttering breath and slowly opens her eyes.

"My Odette," he murmurs and kisses those cool lips of hers, and as if it was instinct, she finally kisses him back.

Her hands come up and wipe at his tears, and he smiles at her while crying, and she blinks those wide eyes of hers and then looks at him.

She does not say anything, does not ask what happened, and in his chest, he can feel her heart fluttering in confusion as if it was a wild swan.

There is nothing here that tells of the price he paid to have her back, and slowly, she falls against his chest and returns his heart to him, and he simply holds her for a long time and tries to let this embrace of hers wash away that horrible year he waited.

* * *

She does not turn into a swan anymore. That first morning, when she steps outside, her body remains like it is, with that thin scar running along where her ribs meet, her feet bare, her dress all new and clean and untorn.

Slowly, he walks over to her and looks at her. Her human eyes are studying the cloudy sky. He wishes she would have returned on another day so that she could have seen blue skies and the sun that for so long held her a prisoner, but that was out of his hands. She returned once she was ready to return.

"How long was I gone?" she asks. The air smells more of autumn than it did when that arrow pierced her heart, and the leaves have fallen in winds that have bordered on storms. She has noticed it. Of course she has noticed it.

The world is different from the last time she saw it.

"Too long," he says and looks at her.

Finally, she lowers her eyes and studies him. Her eyes are somehow slightly paler. He gently touches her cheek and wonders if it is his fault, if he missed something when he was healing her, but she simply leans into his touch.

She comes to him like she has never come before, as if he was her lifeline, and he wraps her tightly inside the shelter of his arms. She holds on too tight as if she was scared of letting go, and he runs his hand up and down her back and tries to soothe her restless soul so that it feels more comfortable back in its right place, but that only manages to make her shiver and tense as if she was trying to hold onto a sob.

That night, she refuses to let go of him, and at first, he feels helpless. He does not want her like this, does not want her to come to his bed only out of fear of something worse, but she presses tightly against him.

"I'm cold," she murmurs in a voice that is hoarse.

He rubs his magic all over her and wraps her in blankets, and then he holds her again until those shivers of hers pass.

She leans her head against his chest, and then she looks up at him with spooked eyes.

"Your heart," she says, afraid again.

"It's not magic without a price," he tells her as he runs his fingers along her slowly warming lips. They softly open for him. He wonders whether he should kiss her, but eventually decides against it.

Right now, Odette is still too on edge, too raw from the extent of his magic.

"But now you have tied your life to mine," she says, her voice uncertain.

His eyes soften as he holds her in his gaze.

"I already tried living without you," he says and stills for a moment. "I didn't care for it that much."

There are tears in her eyes as she buries her face against his chest, and he closes his eyes and hums slow lullabies for his Odette. Eventually, she stills and falls asleep, but he is there, holding her, soothing her, ready to fight away any and every nightmare that tries to hurt her, but there is no need.

She lies as still as the dead in his arms, and he tries not to cry.

He'll just have to give a little more, then.

* * *

Her eyes often stray to the lake, even while they are supposedly safe inside his house. It has occupied her life for such a long time. He knows it's not reasonable to expect her to get used to this new way of living so quickly, but something in the way she stares at the water makes him uneasy.

Eventually, she looks at him and squeezes his hand as if she already didn't have his attention.

"What am I now?" she asks. He is quiet for a long moment.

"I'm not quite certain," he eventually admits. Her frown deepens, and he only wishes to kiss it away.

"I'm not the swan queen anymore," she says, and there is a question in her voice even if no one else could hear it. He turns his eyes towards her hands, her human hands with their human fingers. Not all of the fingers healed straight. The pinkie in her left hand is slightly crooked.

He wonders if she has noticed it as he pulls up her hands and kisses her palms.

"The curse died when you –"

He still chokes on those words. Even now, when she is there with him and her eyes are so attentive and full of life, he cannot say it, but she understands. She presses her head against his shoulder, and he buries his face in her hair.

"But you are still my Odette," he says with absolute conviction.

She does not answer him.

* * *

The joy of having her back is almost blinding. So long has he wanted her to return, so long has he longed for her quiet comments, the smiles she holds in her eyes, and finally, they live like a husband and wife.

In the mornings, he wakes up before her and smiles as he looks at her, and he kisses her awake again and again and again. They never spend their days apart, and almost constantly, they touch. It does not matter whether he is simply holding her hand or feeling her heat against his side or having her resting her head in his lap. Just her being there is enough to make his heart flutter alongside hers. And the nights, oh, the nights! How long he has waited to fall asleep with her in his bed, to have her rest in his arms and not have to fear for the morning to arrive and steal her away from him!

Yet.

There is something in her that is not quite the same. Oh, her voice is the same and her smile and her reactions, but there is something hollow in her. She kisses him, and those seems like thoughtless kisses whereas before each kiss was carefully decided upon before it was given to him. She walks, and she is as graceful as ever before, but something in it has changed. He looks at her steps, and only when the fleeting first snow falls does he realise it. She leaves no marks on the ground, as if she was nothing more than a ghost. She is weightless though she thinks she has weight, and he looks at her, and he reads his books and wonders if he did something wrong, if his sacrifices were not enough.

But the worst part is when she has closed her eyes during the evenings, and she lies on top of him like a corpse and he must hold back tears. He can feel her heart fluttering alongside his own, and that flutter slows down until each heartbeat is an ache in his vein.

When the day is bright, it's much easier to ignore that all, but when the night comes, he sees the truth.

She is only half of herself anymore.

* * *

He can ignore the horrible truth most of the time, but when Odette is around her swan maidens, he cannot stop the lurching of his stomach or that horror tightening on his heart. With her swan maidens, the truth is revealed.

Odette steps amongst them as if nothing had changed, as if she hadn't been gone for a year. The swan maidens touch her gently and the cygnets embrace her, and she smiles at them and seems so calm, and for the first time ever, the swan maidens look like they are at a loss. One by one, they glance at him with so many questions in their eyes, and he cannot answer them.

They have their queen back, but even they know this is not the queen who took an arrow to the heart to protect them.

Odette is smiling to them, and she does not seem to care that blood has seeped into their form and stains it, that their feathers are now black, that they killed the king, and this is not the Odette they were prepared to serve for an eternity and a day.

Slowly, he walks over to them all, careful to make his actions visible. He has seen what violence they are capable of.

"I can hear them in my head," Odette says in wonder. He stops on his tracks, and then he looks at the swan maidens.

He should have known that might happen. The swan maidens are all creatures of deep magic, forbidden magic, and now Odette has been touched by that same magic as well.

"What are they thinking about?" he asks, curious to hear the answer. He has never thought of what they might even think about if there are any thoughts at all. Do they share a mind that has been fractured into all these bodies, or are they different souls that share a connection deeper than life or death?

"They are... sad," she murmurs, and then her hand slips into his own and her fearful eyes look at him.

He smiles at her and takes her into an embrace that is supposed to calm her down, and it's like so many times before, but not quite. She is not like a swan anymore, and not quite like the girl she used to be. She is something other, something different, but even now, he cannot help but love her.

"You were gone for such a long time," he whispers into her open hair and kisses the top of her head. "It was difficult for them as well to see how you were hurt."

She does not say anything. She simply stays there, locked within his embrace, and he tries to push back those promises he could never keep.

* * *

He thought it was horrible to fall asleep with dead weight pressing against his body, but it is infinitely worse to wake up with her gone again.

Von Rothbart is up before he even realises it, and with frantic eyes, he studies the room. Her heart is still fluttering inside his chest, against his own heart, and he lets out a small breath of relief at that knowledge, but she is still gone.

He pulls his coat on and heads out of the house, desperately searching for her.

The swan maidens are outside on the shores of the lake, and he glances amongst them, but Odette is not there. He walks over, looks at each, but they only blankly stare back at him.

"Where is she?" he asks, fear colouring his voice. "Where is Odette?"

One of the cygnets looks up at him, and she points her arm towards the deep, dark woods. He looks that way and thinks frantically, and then he runs a hand through his hair as he realises what lies in that direction.

The village. Her old home.

He hurries that way, and the swan maidens remain mutely at the lake that is their home.

The woods are dark and still this night. Frost has gathered onto reeds and grasses, and the trees are bare, their branches reminding him of the twisted bones that used to form her body. He is not afraid. The moon is full, and his eyes can easily catch any movement even far away, and after all these years, animals know better than to approach the lake where his magic is the deepest.

The village is where he remembers it to have been. He stands among the fallen houses and looks at the broken stonework and the collapsed roofs, and slowly, his eyes turn towards the mill that lies at the edge of a small stream.

She is not there, and slowly, fear starts to cool down in his veins, making him feel like he is slowly freezing to death.

Even the house she used to live in does not reveal her, and in his horror, he closes his eyes and listens to his heart and the small flutter of her heartbeat next to it. It is faint, but he focuses on it, focuses on their connection, focuses all he has on the memory of her, alive and well.

His head snaps up as he feels her presence not far from there, and he walks deeper into the woods.

This is not a place where he has gone before. He has visited the village before, a few times many centuries ago when he wanted to catch a glimpse of her face, but never has he seen the graveyard in the quietest part of the forest.

Grasses have grown to cover body-shaped hills that have been pushed down by age, and moss covers the remnants of any crosses or tombstones that may have once upon a time told about the people who have been put to rest here. He does not see them. The only thing he sees is the woman in a white dress, standing in that old and abandoned and forgotten graveyard, staring on the husks of what used to be so important to people who lived near her queendom.

"Odette," he says in relief as he steps out of the shadow and hurries over to her, but her eyes do not lift in greeting. Instead, they remain on the bumps on the ground underneath their feet.

"Are they buried here?" she asks in a small voice. "My father, my mother, my brothers?"

He looks at her, and a horrible weight drops down in his stomach.

"I don't know," he admits.

Odette's eyes travel around them and seem to see more than what the graveyard is now. He knows she must have visited here before, but never after her transformation.

Why tonight? Why tonight of all nights would she want to return here, when she is now alive?

But he knows she isn't, and he wonders if she has realised it as well.

"Where would you have buried me?" she asks him in her lost voice. He brings a hand up to her cool cheek.

"You are alive now, Odette," he tells her with tears in his eyes. "It does not matter. You are alive."

She shakes her head, but she still leans into his touch.

"But what if you hadn't managed to awaken me again?" she asks. "Where would you then have put me?"

He does not say anything. He does not want to admit to her that he would never have buried her. He does not want to talk of the year he kept her in his bed, the year of bringing flowers to her and watching them wilt and bringing in fresh flowers to replace them.

He thinks he may have constructed her a coffin of glass had he not succeeded in awakening her. He thinks he may have kept her with him for the rest of his years, always hoping for something to bring her back, always keeping guard at her side. He lowers his gaze and squeezes his eyes shut so that his tears of shame do not show.

He takes her into his arms, too afraid of losing her otherwise, and she presses closer to him, breathing in his scent with a breath that feels more like a sob.

"I don't want to lose myself to the darkness ever again," she tells him with a shiver. He holds her tightly.

"I won't let you get lost," he tells her, promises it, but she shakes her head.

"I die every night again and again and again," she tells him and nearly chokes on the words. "I can't go on like this anymore, Wolfgang. I can't go back to the darkness alone."

He squeezes her tighter and breathes in her scent, buries his face into her hair, and he tries his best not to feel like he is losing her, but he knows he is.

"Would you stay by my side, even there?" she asks.

He finally looks at her, and in his heart, he knows that he cannot leave her.

His hands shake a little as he frees her from that tight embrace. There is a glint of moonlight that reaches his skin, and then the moonbeam turns into a silver ring. She looks at it, and she looks at him, and slowly, always searching for her permission from deep within her eyes, he takes hold of her hand and slips his ring onto her finger.

He kisses her hand, and he kisses her lips, and she presses tightly against him.

Their marriage is consummated amongst the crumbling tombstones on the cool ground with mosses to only soften their bodies. He adores her and kisses her all over, and she is so cold, always so cold. She shivers and looks deep into his eyes, and he tries to memorise her like this, broken and worn down yet finally his.

Slowly, he curls up against her. She is squeezing his hand tightly.

"Will it hurt?" she asks as she blinks away tears. He shakes his head.

"It will be like falling asleep for you," he murmurs. She looks at him.

"But you'll have to feel it," she says in a broken voice. He smiles at her, and his hands travel along that scar between her breasts, that horrible scar where the arrow pierced her heart, and he feels the stolen heart beating underneath his hand.

"I haven't died yet," he murmurs. "I first must do that to be able to follow you."

She looks at him with those wide, sad eyes of hers, and she presses a desperate kiss against his lips. He kisses her back, tries to push all his love into it. He knows this will be the last time he will ever kiss her.

Eventually, the kiss ends. There are tears on his face, and he looks at the watery eyes of Odette and smiles.

"I will be with you soon," he promises, and slowly, she curls against his body. He wraps his hands around her like all those times he has gone to sleep with her dying over his heart all over again, and he closes his eyes and holds her tight.

His magic unravels around her borrowed heart, and it stops suddenly, with no pain at all. She stills in his arms, just like she had fallen asleep. He squeezes his eyes and tries not to feel afraid.

He tries his best not to move her around as he slowly conjures a knife with his magic and presses it against his ribcage. He breathes slowly, and then, he carves himself open for her, carves himself open where he used to feel her heartbeat alongside his own.

He caresses her face one final time with his bloody hand, and he falls into her embrace and the darkness.


End file.
